William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet born in 1865 in Dublin. He spent much of his childhood in County Sligo where his parents were from. Yeats was involved in the Celtic Revival movement which sought to promote Ireland's native heritage against English cultural influences. He was heavily influenced by Irish mythology and folklore as well as Irish revolutionary Maud Gonne, whom he met in 1889. The poem discusses a woman with yellow hair and young men despairing over her, as well as the woman considering dying her hair so men would love her for herself rather than her yellow locks. In the final stanza, an old religious man declares only God could love the woman for herself alone rather than her yellow hair.

1. Presentation By – Sharad Jaiswal
T G T English, J N V Rampura Neem

2. About the poet
•
Born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1865, William Butler Yeats was the son of
a well-known Irish painter, John Butler Yeats. He spent his childhood
in County Sligo, where his parents were raised, and in London. He
returned to Dublin at the age of fifteen to continue his education
and study painting, but quickly discovered he preferred poetry. Born
into the Anglo-Irish landowning class, Yeats became involved with
the Celtic Revival, a movement against the cultural influences of
English rule in Ireland during the Victorian period, which sought to
promote the spirit of Ireland's native heritage. Though Yeats never
learned Gaelic himself, his writing at the turn of the century drew
extensively from sources in Irish mythology and folklore. Also a
potent influence on his poetry was the Irish revolutionary Maud
Gonne, whom he met in 1889, a woman equally famous for her
passionate nationalist politics and her beauty. Though she married
another man in 1903 and grew apart from Yeats (and Yeats himself
was eventually married to another woman, Georgie Hyde Lees), she
remained a powerful figure in his poetry.

3. “Never shall a young man,
Thrown into despair
By those great honey – coloured
Ramparts at your ear,
Love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair”

4. “but I can get a hair – dye
And set such colour there,
Brown, or black, or carrot,
That young men in despair
May love me for myself alone
And not my yellow hair.”

5. “ I heard an old religious man
But yesternight declare
That he had found a text to prove
That only god, my dear,
Could love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair